The present invention is directed to configuration management of communications networks, and more specifically to an apparatus and method for processing and storing model-based configuration data and which utilizes templates for configuring a plurality of network devices in order to make such configuration management less time-consuming, expensive and error prone.
Configuration management in communications networks is the task of keeping an inventory of network devices, knowing the configuration of each device, resetting or updating configurations as the need arises, and scheduling configuration changes. In the past, many of these tasks were done manually or by software packages built specifically for a particular device.
A xe2x80x9cconfigurationxe2x80x9d is defined as a particular setting of device parameters that govern the operational characteristics of a network device. In communications networks, the devices that are routinely configured are routers, bridges and hubs, and examples of device parameters include port thresholds, on/off switches, access security, etc.
In the prior art, one method of network configuration is to manually configure a network device. In this case, a user physically attaches a dumb terminal to the network device and issues configuration commands through the terminal""s keyboard. A disadvantage of this method is that one cannot retrieve or store information regarding the configuration of a device.
A second known method is to make configuration changes with a software package built specially for a network device type. A disadvantage of this method is that one cannot configure different device types simultaneously. Examples of commercially available tools that allow one to configure a single type of device include the following: (1) Site Manager, Wellfleet Communications, Inc., 8 Federal Street, Billerica, Mass. 01821; and (2) Cisco Works, 1525 O""Brien Drive, Menlo Park, Calif. 94025.
Thus, the primary disadvantages of the prior art include:
a user can manually configure only one device at a time;
a user must know the desired configuration before making a change;
a user must manually check to see if in fact the desired change took place;
existing tools utilize only one network management protocol (e.g., the simple network management protocolxe2x80x94SNMP) to manage the device; and
existing tools are specialized for one particular type of device (e.g., Cisco routers).
In general, the prior art methods are time-consuming, expensive, error prone, and limited in terms of the operations that can be performed.
The present invention is directed to a method and apparatus for configuration management of a communications network, and which performs one or more of the following functions:
enables configuration of several network devices at the same time;
enables retrieval of a configuration from a device, storage of a configuration, and downloading of the configuration to other devices;
verifies that configurations have taken place and generates reports and/or alarms when configuration operations are unsuccessful;
enables automatic scheduling of configuration retrieval, loading and/or verification;
enables configuration of a wide variety of different network devices.
The present invention utilizes a database of models, each xe2x80x9cmodelxe2x80x9d representing an associated network device and including attribute values for the parameters of that device. A configuration manager accesses a set of model types, each xe2x80x9cmodel typexe2x80x9d having an associated set of attributes. The configuration manager creates a template by selecting a model type and one or more attributes from the associated set of attributes, and then screens a selected model with the template to retrieve the values for each of the attributes in the template from the attribute values in the database, to create a configuration record for the model. The configuration record may then be stored, modified, transferred to a model, and/or displayed to a user on a user interface. Also, multiple templates can be used to create a composite configuration record. Multiple configuration records may be transferred to multiple models in the database, for reconfiguring multiple network devices. In one alternative embodiment, a template may be created from a pre-existing configuration record by extracting the attributes of that record. Other features include the generation of alarms to indicate whether or not a transfer or reconfiguration has been successful, and maintaining a scheduler for automatic capture, load or verification of configuration records.
The terms xe2x80x9cmodelxe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9cmodel typexe2x80x9d will be more specifically described in regard to the following detailed description. Generally, a model type is analogous to a xe2x80x9cclassxe2x80x9d in object-oriented terminology. Note that a reference to xe2x80x9cmodel type namexe2x80x9d is meant to be the same as xe2x80x9cmodel typexe2x80x9d.
The term xe2x80x9cmodelxe2x80x9d is analogous to an xe2x80x9cinstance of a classxe2x80x9d or an xe2x80x9cobjectxe2x80x9d in object-oriented terminology. So, a model is an instance of a model type. Again, a reference to xe2x80x9cmodel namexe2x80x9d means the same as just xe2x80x9cmodelxe2x80x9d.
These and other advantages of the present invention are both particularly described in the following detailed description and drawings.